The theme of the World Suicide Prevention Day, ‘Suicide prevention across the globe: Strengthening protective factors and instilling hope’ on September 10, brought many thoughts to my mind. Data from the WHO indicates that approximately one million people worldwide commit suicide each year. Madadgaar National Helpline’s database documented a total of 751 cases of suicide during January to June, 2012, across Pakistan, i.e. as many as 136 children, 303 women and 312 men committed suicide.

History of suicide attempts, psychiatric disorder, substance abuse, stressful life events, domestic violence, poverty, insecurity, hopelessness and depression are all risk factors for suicide.

Resilience, a sense of personal self-worth, self-confidence, effective problem-solving skills, adaptive help-seeking behaviour, religious and social integration, social connectedness, maintenance of good relationships and ready access to health care are associated with a reduced risk of suicide. A healthy lifestyle, with maintenance of good diet and sleep habits, regular physical activity and abstinence from smoking and illicit drug use, are recommended for mental wellbeing.

The media plays a significant role in today’s society, by providing a very wide range of information. It strongly influences attitudes, beliefs and behaviours, and plays a vital role in opinion making. Because of this strong influence on society the media can also play an active role in the prevention of suicide.

The majority of people who consider suicide are ambivalent towards it, i.e. they are not sure that they want to die. One of the many factors that may lead a vulnerable individual to commit suicide might be publicity about suicides in the media. That is to say, how the media reports suicide cases can influence others.

In Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, the hero shoots himself after an ill-fated love affair, and shortly after its publication, there were many reports of young men using the same method to commit suicide. Hence the term ‘Werther effect’, used in technical literature to designate imitation (or copycat) suicides and Papageno effect as any suicide-protective impact of media reporting.

Martin Voracek in an article in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2010, wrote that repeated reporting of the same suicide and reporting of suicide myths is associated with increased suicide rates. Coverage of individual suicidal-ideation not accompanied by suicidal behaviour, articles on individuals who adopted coping strategies other than suicidal behaviour in adverse circumstances is negatively associated with suicide.

D.P. Philips, in American Sociological Review (1982), showed an increase in suicide up to 10 days after television reports of cases of suicide. As in the print media, highly publicised stories that appear in multiple programmes on multiple channels seem to carry the greatest impact. However, there are conflicting reports about the impact of fictional programmes.

In responsible reporting on suicide the statistics from reliable and authentic sources are quoted, spontaneous comments are handled carefully in spite of time pressures; expressions such as ‘suicide epidemic’ or ‘the place with the highest suicide rate in the world’ are avoided. Reporting suicidal behaviour as an understandable response to social or cultural changes or degradation is resisted. Any mental health problem the person may have had needs to be acknowledged. Every effort to avoid overstatement, photographs of the deceased, of the method used and of the scene of the suicide need to be avoided. Front page headlines are never the ideal location for suicide reports.

The media can help to prevent suicide by publishing the available mental health services and help lines with up-to-date telephone numbers and addresses along with news on suicide, publicising the warning signs of suicidal behaviour; conveying the message that depression is often associated with suicidal behaviour and that depression is a treatable condition; offering a message of sympathy to the survivors in their hour of grief and providing telephone numbers of support groups for survivors, will be useful.

Media sensitisation is important so that photographs, suicide notes, specific details of the method used are not published. Giving simplistic reasons, glorifying or sensationalising suicide should be avoided. All these practices by the media will contribute very positively towards suicide prevention in the society.

Anne Frank, who has become the symbol of resilience against the Nazi atrocities during World War II, went into hiding two days after her 13th birthday along with her family. During the period of her incarceration she kept a diary which went on to become the famous book The Diary of a Young Girl. That brave young girl in the last years of her life while facing the most cruel circumstances was still thinking about the betterment of others and was writing a message of hope “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”